Review: “Begin Again” blends James Baldwin’s urgent lessons and a call to face “the American Lie”
By Robert R. Thomas BEGIN AGAIN by Eddie S. Glaude Jr. is a clear example of a historical genre I call living history, i.e., history being written in real time by living historians. Glaude is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of African American Studies at Princeton, where he is also the chair of the Center for African American Studies and the chair of the Department of African American Studies. Glaude’s...
Review: Latest Flint book, “Poisoned Water” belongs in classrooms, libraries all over America
By Harold C. Ford “Flint was an example of the nation at its worst but also its best.” — Candy J. Cooper, Poisoned Water I’ve just added a fourth book to my personal collection of publications about Flint’s water crisis: Poisoned Water: How the Citizens of Flint, Michigan, Fought for Their Lives and Warned the Nation, written by Candy J. Cooper, with Marc Aronson, released May 19 by Bloomsbury Publishing. Cooper is...
Review: For coronavirus “Cuckoo’s Nest,” the uneasily relevant show went on — and then got cancelled
By Patsy Isenberg It’s ironic how in sync “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” at Flint Repertory Theatre’s (The Rep’s) Elgood blackbox stage last Friday (the 13th, as it happened) echoed how it seems so many of us were feeling that day. It was the opening night for the show. I kept checking the theatre’s website all week to make sure they hadn’t cancelled or postponed the opening. They didn’t. But it was supposed to take place...
Charles Winfrey’s “Saints of St. John Street” runs at McCree through Feb. 29
By Patsy Isenberg “The now demolished St. John Street neighborhood is historic in the sense it was one of only two areas African Americans could reside in as they migrated to Flint from the south.” That’s the first sentence about the authentic and nostalgically effective play, “The Saints of St. John Street” from the program for the Charles Winfrey memoir that opened Feb. 20 at the New McCree Theatre, 2040 W. Carpenter...
Review: Buckham show shines light on primal obsessions of love and death
By Jeffery L Carey, Jr. “Besides Eros, then, there was a death drive.” ––Sigmund Freud Within humanity there seems to be an obsession with the concepts of love and death. This obsession worms its way into our stories, poems, and art, and has been doing so for over 35,000 years when a cave dweller carved the Venus of Hohle Fels out of the bone of a wooly mammoth. Buckham Gallery’s newest exhibit, Eros and Thanatos, shines a new light...
Review: Semaj Brown at the FIA a poet, a priestess, a force of nature borne of anger and love
By Jan Worth-Nelson In the opening of Semaj Brown’s Jan. 26 performance at the Flint Institute of Arts, FIA director John Henry described Brown, Flint’s first poet laureate, as a “science-driven author, dramatist, playwright, and educator who builds inter-disciplinary curriculum.” And since Brown’s appointment as poet laureate by former Mayor Karen Weaver last year, she has plunged with high-octane...
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